The 2/3 life size marble version of Louisa Lander’s Evangeline (c.1856-58) is now on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Long missing from the Salem sculptor’s publicly displayed oeuvre, this version was donated in 2020 by the art dealer Michael Altman and his wife Alexandria, in honor of “Grandma Louby Weeks.”




Evangeline represents the heroine of Longfellow’s 1847 poem about an Acadian girl exiled from Nova Scotia during the British Expulsion of the Acadians. It was considered one of Lander’s most successful pieces, and like almost all of her work, represents a female heroine in a neoclassical visual style. The New York Times review titled “The Dusseldorf Gallery“ published on March 13, 1860, notes:
…the first thing which catches the eye of the visitor is a statuette of “Evangeline,” the heroine of LONGFELLOW’S poem of that name. It is the work of the American sculptress, Miss LOUISA LANDER, of Salem, Mass., and reflects great credit on the lady, who is, as yet, but a young artist…
The sculptress has imparted a great deal of the beautiful serenity, the happy peace which this line suggests, to her little figure, which reposed full length on a flowery bank…the workmanship of the piece is very elaborate and beautiful. It has a few faults, one of which is a superabundance of long, thick, ropy bunches of hair, hanging on each side of the almost infantile face and extremely delicate form of the sleeping girl…
In 1860, Lander returned to America for good from Rome, and immediately began to show and sell work produced in her Roman studio. Lander had exhibits in the most prominent Boston venues, among them the Boston Athenaeum and the Williams & Everett Gallery. Evangeline was shown at the prestigious Dusseldorf Gallery in New York City together with several other pieces, including: a small statuette of Virginia Dare; the water nymph Undine; and a six-foot group of three figures, Pioneer Mother Defending Her Daughters.
Interestingly, Evangeline also exists in another, 1/2 life size version. Lander listed several completed works on the back page of her “Virginia Dare” pamphlet which promoted the sculpture of the same name: To-Day (bust), Galatea (head), Maude Muller (bust, under life size), Evangeline (both 2/3 life size and 1/2 life size).
Evangeline is also specifically mentioned in Lander’s 1923 will (though which size is not indicated): “Margaret Lander Pierce, child of Vinton (Lander’s great-great niece), received the statue of “Evangeline” now in a box in the front room, and some furniture, and $5,000.”
For the full story of Lander’s work and extraordinary career, see my article: https://cvw198.wordpress.com/my-new-articles/
Evangeline in on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Photographs by Carolyn Wirth.